


This New Year

by frankbannister



Category: The Frighteners (1996)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 10:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20674052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankbannister/pseuds/frankbannister
Summary: Set slightly after the movie ends. Lucy and Frank choose to live, now that they get the chance to. I wrote this in 2013 through about 2015, i think.





	1. Chapter 1

**M I D N I G H T**

* * *

It must have been past midnight.

Cold air and a thin layer of fog filled the entire town. It was incredibly quiet, but he didn't notice, at least not at first. He had been standing out in the yard for a while staring at the stars wondering about Cyrus and Stuart. The Judge, especially. He remembered what it was like to always have them around, a nuisance at times, but they were his friends.

_"Friends, yeah, right",_ he thought to himself.

_"Co-workers would probably be a better description… if even that…."_ his mind trailed off the thought with a sense of guilt.

It was October and the chill of the night began to cut into his bones, letting him know that it was time to go back inside.

"The guys would think I'm really losing it if they saw me now." he mumbled lightly.

Turning his back on the moon above, he walked back into the small house, slowly shut the sliding door to the patio and walked over to the tall standing lamp in the corner of the living room. After fiddling with the switch – he often forgot which way it turned to – it clicked on and spread its yellow glow.

It's been a little over one month now that Frank Bannister and Lucy Lynskey have been sharing this small rental house. Lucy thought an apartment would have been a wiser choice, but Frank insisted that they would be more comfortable in a house. By "comfortable" he meant "less likely to have any ghosts hanging around, but he didn't tell this to Lucy. He didn't want her to worry. Things that were normal to him, weren't normal to anyone else and he always tried to keep this as under control as possible. It's not always easy to hide the fact that someone recently deceased is standing right beside you, yelling obscenities or asking questions, but he's become quite good at it in the past five years.

He walked over to the small piano that was in the middle of the room, pushed up against a wall. He thought about how much he wished he had learned to play an instrument as a child. Music might have been a way to escape.

_"A guitar or drums would have been nice."_

Not that he would be able to play them right now, anyway.

Lucy had been sound asleep since 10:30 P.M. Even after all they'd been through recently, she could still sleep well. She was used to the grueling schedule that was u[-all night studying and testing during medical school and the haphazard routine of being on-call as an intern. Sleeping at any given moment, even if it was for only ten minutes in 24 hours, became a luxury and she deeply valued being able to sleep all night.

Frank picked up one of the photos on the small piano and traced around the figure in the frame. He never had trouble sleeping before the accident.

_"Come to think of it, even after the accident I wasn't up all night, every night."_

This night would make the third day in a row that he couldn't sleep. He managed to doze off on the couch yesterday afternoon, while Lucy was out, but he'd hardly call it restful. He was jolted awake by the sensation of something heavy on his chest.

He only saved a small amount of items from his so-called "dream home". He didn't want to muddle up too much of their new life with the past. Everything else was still at the house, he didn't care what happened to it. He was hoping to destroy the place one day, anyway.

He looked around the room and decided it was too bright, he walked over and clicked off the lamp, with slightly less struggle to get the switch to turn the correct way. Why was it always easier to turn it off? Was that a metaphor for life?

_"These sleepless nights are getting to me."_

He walked into the kitchen and looked at the small clock on the microwave, it was blinking "12:00".

"It can't still be midnight?", he grumbled to himself.

_"Just before I went outside it said 11:59..."_ and in a split second he realized that if the time was blinking, not stationary, the power on it must have been reset.

There was only one thing in the world that could zap an electronic on and off without anyone noticing or intentionally destroying it.

He narrowed his tired eyes, focusing in the dark as best as he could, the only light that was coming in was through the vertical blinds that faced the moon. He paid close attention to his surroundings and listened for any kind of noise.

_"An emanation of some kind must be hanging around."_

* * *

_AN: this is just as i wrote it, no editing, i apologize for any mistakes. i wrote this years ago and don't want to edit it, but figured it was worth posting._


	2. Routine

_ **R O U T I N E** _

* * *

She was exhausted.

The one and only thing she could think about her entire drive home was how much she wanted to see Frank. The gentle way he had of looking at her from afar without saying a word. She missed him so much.

The medical center was giving out free flu shots in hopes to ease the fear of sickness and death that plagued the people of Fairwater. As she had feared would happen, happened, and the entire town showed up. Each and every rude person as always, all wanted to be the first in line.

It took half of the nursing staff to keep the people in line and the other half to calm the doctors and assist to the best of their work.

She finally arrived to their small rental home, she parked her jeep at the end of the driveway. It was always was best to keep it away from Frank's vehicle. It wasn't what she imagined would be the first place she'd move into with Frank, but it was better than the house she and Ray had moved into when they arrived at Fairwater. Unlike that house, this one felt like home.

"_Maybe it was all of Ray's work-out equipment that kept it from feeling warm and cozy." _she thought to herself as she opened the door to her jeep.

"_No, it was definitely the feeling of being alone, despite being married."_

She reached for her bag and scarf, hung them over her right arm, and looked over at the house. In just looking at it, she felt a sense of comfort. She closed the door and walked up the house, put her key into the door to unlock it and felt the knob turn on its own.

"Frank!" She felt the surprise in her voice more than she expected.

He was happy to have her home, she could tell by the look on his face.

"_He must have been waiting for me since before I left the hospital."_

"I was worried about you, you're usually home by now." he reached out his hand and grabbed a hold of hers. He led her into the house and took her scarf.

She watched as he hung it over the hook near the door.

Normally, there would be keys hanging from this, but she had noticed that Frank had a strange habit of draping items over things no one else would think of. She was amused but said nothing.

After she had put her bag down on the couch, they embraced, each happy to see one another.

They spoke of their day while eating a simple dinner of sandwiches. Neither of them were very good at cooking, as they always had other things on their mind. Lucy didn't mind, she usually ate her meals at the hospital and they were always healthy there. Frank was previously surviving on toast, cereal, and the occasional bowl of pasta or plate of eggs when he could get the electric griddle hot enough. He perhaps would have been able to cook something more if he had a working stove or oven. Not to mention walls in his kitchen.

She paid close attention to him as he asked her questions he didn't really know anything about.

He then asked her how she was doing and she knew he meant about what they'd gone through recently.

"You know, I'm the doctor here, I should be the one asking those type of questions.", she said jokingly as she smiled at him.

"Yeah, I know, but I don't want you to be doing too much all at once", he said while looking at her seriously.

"I'm fine, Frank, I really am", she felt a small sense of sadness while answering this.

She wasn't fine, but she could tell that he was having more trouble coping than she was. She didn't know what was going on with her, but she could feel a difference. There was something new in her life, other than this love for Frank.

They finished dinner and cleared the kitchen, they watched a short world news program together on the small couch. She was feeling sleepy and let Frank know. He understood, told her to go ahead and get ready for bed.

She walked to the small bedroom and turned around. She gave him a warm smile.

"I hope to see you in bed, soon, okay?"

"I'll be there as soon as the talk shows start. Who wants to give them any attention and encourage them, right?" he joked, hoping to ease her worry.

She walked into the bedroom, went across to the bathroom and washed her make-up off, brushed her teeth and changed into comfortable pajamas. She pushed her hair back and out of her face with one hand and walked over to the bed. She glanced at the digital clock on the table next to their bed.

"10:15 P.M." it read in bright green. She then pressed the alarm button and set it for "5:00 A.M."

_I hope you really do go to sleep tonight, Frank. I don't want to wake up and find you pretending to be asleep next to me again._

Getting under the covers and putting her head down was easy, as she was even more exhausted.

* * *

_AN: Same as last time... I'm trying my best to find the other 4 chapters, but they might have been lost in my hard disc failure back in 2017....._


End file.
